The collaboration between Dim Past and Coral Morphologic was a natural fit – both trace their origins in local waters. Brad Lovett, the Florida native behind the negative rave/dark techno project Dim Past, grew up going to the beach every day, which is where his folkloric dreads first started to take form. Coral Morphologic, the duo who grows thousands of coral colonies and turns images of them into high-def fluorescent art, is obsessed with Florida’s myriad waterworlds and the lessons they have in store. The video for Dim Past’s “Specter in Wire,” from the Black Dolphin EP, is a testament to this common thalassic history. 

Colin Foord, the marine biologist who started Coral Morphologic with his longtime friend, artist Jared McKay, drove us southeast on the calm Seybold Canal toward the Atlantic. Dylan Romer, an application developer and video artist, took footage on his iPhone and used Time Piles for the editing of the video – an app he created that manipulates visual info to produce meditative collage effects. 

McKay used Google Glass, which Coral Morphologic received as an early test group, lending him a cyborg sort of quality. McKay and Romer captured the sun bathed waterfront fisheries and old Miami houses. We passed yachts, restaurants, and homeless hangouts, all shadowed under the surreal postmodernity of Miami’s high-rises. Our boat made it to Government Cut, a manmade inlet carved in 1905 which now hosts cruise and freight ships on the surface, and a universe of corals beneath. 

After anchoring, we explored the waters and took part in occult, aquatic rituals. There was a mind-blowing sunset; then, something in the corals ignited a shared psychedelic experience in all of us. As we returned under lightning skies, Miami appeared as a massive urban skeleton of steel and cement, teeming with life.